An ant crawls onto my foot, so I bend over and brush it off. “Like how we met?”
“Right.”
“How about the truth?”
“Do you really want to tell people that?”
Good point. “Then how about we met at my family’s bookstore, Castleview Books?”
“No,” he snaps so abruptly that I jump. When I stare at him in shock, he shakes his head. “You know I don’t read.”
“Maybe you can pretend, just this once, that you do.”
“No.”
Okay, so he clearly doesn’t like to read. “Then how about weskimthe truth? Say that we bumped into each other.” He cocks his head as if thinking it over. When he doesn’t answer I continue. “Is that what you’d like me to tell people? We bumped into one another on the street?”
He nods. “It’s fine.”
“Okay. Great. What’s your favorite food?”
“What?”
I shrug. “I should know things like that.”
“Steak.”
“Easy enough. Mine’s spaghetti with the sauce added afterthe noodles are cooked, not all mixed up together, because then things just become mushy, and a salad with it, but with the salad dressing on the side, and I’m also not a fan of tomatoes.”
He stares at me for a long beat. “That’s completely unsurprising.”
I choose to ignore his snark for now. “What’s your favorite sport?”
“Falconing.”
“Oh. Wow. Not what I expected to hear. Do you have falcons?”
“Yes.”
I glance up, but there’s not a falcon in sight. “I love football. I like to see men taking each other down.”
He steps toward me, and his gaze falls to my mouth before slowly tracking back to my eyes. “That’s shockingly surprising, given your weak stomach.”
His words should be a burning insult, but there’s a lusty quality to his voice, one that makes my mouth dry. Heat floods my cheeks and drifts down, pooling between my legs.
“Well, then.” I take a step back. “So you’ll escort me to the ceremony?”
He inhales sharply and snaps his gaze away from my face. “No. Ophelia will bring you when it’s time. I’ll see you on the lawn.” He pauses, studies me. “You can do this, can’t you?”
His eyes are so scrutinizing that sweat sprouts on my brow. He knows that I can’t work magic. How could he have guessed already?
“Youcanact like my fiancée,” he clarifies.
I slap the air, dismissing his worry. “Of course. This’ll be a piece of cake.”
13
Iam so screwed.
